Lynn Hershman Leeson: Are our Eyes Targets
Posted on August 08 2024
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JSF Düsseldorf │April 11, 2024–February 2, 2025
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The Julia Stoschek Foundation is excited to present Lynn Hershman Leeson: Are Our Eyes Targets?, the first solo exhibition by the renowned artist and media pioneer in Düsseldorf. Spanning the entire second floor of the foundation, the exhibition features videos, photo-collages, and interactive and mixed-media installations that delve into the artist’s groundbreaking practice.
2024 marks the fortieth anniversary of the epic video installation, The Electronic Diaries of Lynn Hershman Leeson 1984–2019 (1984–2019), which forms the centerpiece of the exhibition. Hershman Leeson examines her personal experiences of abuse and illness and the relationship between technology and self, amid the global political context. As the work shifts between time frames and perspectives, viewers encounter the evolution of multiple, sometimes contradictory personas that represent the artist. These slipping identities lead us to question how much of what we see on our screens is true, revealing a gap between reality and our mediated images of it. Set against the contemporary media landscape, Hershman Leeson’s work rings truer than ever.
2024 marks the fortieth anniversary of the epic video installation, The Electronic Diaries of Lynn Hershman Leeson 1984–2019 (1984–2019), which forms the centerpiece of the exhibition. Hershman Leeson examines her personal experiences of abuse and illness and the relationship between technology and self, amid the global political context. As the work shifts between time frames and perspectives, viewers encounter the evolution of multiple, sometimes contradictory personas that represent the artist. These slipping identities lead us to question how much of what we see on our screens is true, revealing a gap between reality and our mediated images of it. Set against the contemporary media landscape, Hershman Leeson’s work rings truer than ever.
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The exhibition Lynn Hershman Leeson: Are Our Eyes Targets? is curated by Lisa Long, Artistic Director of the Julia Stoschek Foundation, with the support of Line Ajan, Assistant Curator.
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Lynn Hershman Leeson, Shadow Stalker, 2018-2021, Video, 10', Farbe, Ton, Videostill. Courtesy of the artist, Bridget Donahue and Altman Siegel.
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Lynn Hershman Leeson, The Electronic Diaries of Lynn Hershman Leeson 1984-2019, Sechskanal-Videoinstallation, 74', Farbe Ton, Videostill. Courtesy of the artist and Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco.
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Digital Diaries
April 11, 2024–February 2, 2025, JSF Düsseldorf
Artists: Alex Ayed, Sophie Calle, Sophie Gogl, Rindon Johnson, Kristin Lucas, Sarah Lucas, Jota Mombaça, Hannah Perry, Frances Stark, Martine Syms, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tromarama, Hannah Wilke.
The group exhibition Digital Diaries looks at how artists have experimented with diaristic forms in video and digital art from the 1970s to today. Inspired by Lynn Hershman Leeson’s iconic work The Electronic Diaries of Lynn Hershman Leeson 1984–2019 (1984–2019), Digital Diaries gathers videos, photographs, video sculptures and mixed-media works that record artists’ intimate experiences. Placing works from the collection in dialogue with loaned pieces, the exhibition combines early videos by Sophie Calle and Hannah Wilke with contemporary works by Alex Ayed, Jota Mombaça, Hannah Perry, and Tromarama, among others.
Intertwining images and personal writing, these artists use storytelling and digital technologies to craft images of themselves and reveal their private lives. From self-portraiture and home videos to phone messages and chatroom conversations, the works move from the intimacy of daily life, as in a photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans and a video by Ken Okiishi, to a wider sociopolitical view, like in Rindon Johnson’s video. Drawing on the evolution of film, video, and photography, as well as on our communication tools, the artists reflect on the impact technologies have had on the construction and performance of gender and identity.
April 11, 2024–February 2, 2025, JSF Düsseldorf
Artists: Alex Ayed, Sophie Calle, Sophie Gogl, Rindon Johnson, Kristin Lucas, Sarah Lucas, Jota Mombaça, Hannah Perry, Frances Stark, Martine Syms, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tromarama, Hannah Wilke.
The group exhibition Digital Diaries looks at how artists have experimented with diaristic forms in video and digital art from the 1970s to today. Inspired by Lynn Hershman Leeson’s iconic work The Electronic Diaries of Lynn Hershman Leeson 1984–2019 (1984–2019), Digital Diaries gathers videos, photographs, video sculptures and mixed-media works that record artists’ intimate experiences. Placing works from the collection in dialogue with loaned pieces, the exhibition combines early videos by Sophie Calle and Hannah Wilke with contemporary works by Alex Ayed, Jota Mombaça, Hannah Perry, and Tromarama, among others.
Intertwining images and personal writing, these artists use storytelling and digital technologies to craft images of themselves and reveal their private lives. From self-portraiture and home videos to phone messages and chatroom conversations, the works move from the intimacy of daily life, as in a photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans and a video by Ken Okiishi, to a wider sociopolitical view, like in Rindon Johnson’s video. Drawing on the evolution of film, video, and photography, as well as on our communication tools, the artists reflect on the impact technologies have had on the construction and performance of gender and identity.
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Lynn Hershman Leeson, Reach, 1986, Fotografie; Silbergelatinedruck, 80x61 cm, Teil der Serie Phantom Limbs, 1985 – 90.
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LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON: ARE OUR EYES TARGETS?
April 11, 2024–February 2, 2025
JSF / Julia Stoschek Foundation
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